The present embodiments relate to a particle therapy installation for acceleration of at least two particle types, in which case a first particle type is accelerated in a first operating mode, and a second particle type is accelerated to in a second operating mode. The present embodiments also relate to a treatment station having an apparatus for adaptation of a particle beam parameter of a particle beam of a particle therapy installation of this type.
EP 0 986 071 A3 discloses an ion beam therapy system, which has two ion sources, an accelerator system with a linear accelerator, and a Synchrotron as well as an ion beam transport system. An ion beam therapy system such as this can be used to accelerate various ion types, and to pass them to treatment stations.
In addition to the provision of two separate ion sources as disclosed by EP 0 986 071 A3, different ions can also be obtained with a configuration in which two ionization apparatuses, such as sources of different ion types, are interchanged and are operated alternately. The expression “particle source” includes either embodiment variants.
During a bombardment session in beam therapy, a patient is positioned at a treatment station, and the patient's positioning is verified with respect to the position on which the therapy plan is based. Bombardment then takes place from one or more incidence directions with particles, for example, protons, pions, helium ions, carbon ions or oxygen ions.
In particle therapy installations, such as those described in EP 0 986 071 A3, passive elements have been placed, generally manually, in a therapy beam path before the start of a bombardment session. For example, ripple filters or range shifters have been placed manually at the beam outlet, depending on the requirements.
A ripple filter is known, for example, from the publication by U. Weber and G. Kraft: “Design and construction of a ripple filter for a smoothed depth dose distribution in conformal particle therapy,” Phys. Med. Biol. 44 (1999) 2765-2775.
A scattering system for a charged particle beam is known, for example, from U.S. Pat. No. 5,440,133. The scattering system is designed in such a manner that its thickness can be adjusted uniformly and continuously. For example, two wedges are moved into or out of the beam on opposite sides.
Various bombardment installations and techniques are described by H. Blattmann in “Beam delivery systems for charged particles”, Radiat. Environ. Biophys. (1992) 31:219-231. This document describes the use of beamforming elements such as range modulators, collimators and bolus elements. A bolus is used, for example, for range matching of the rear dose distribution to a tumor. Passive elements can also be used for beamforming for particle therapy in conjunction with a raster scanning method.